And the chances of Donald Trump's family and fortune surviving climate change are small, dwindling daily and irreversibly.

That's Not A Photoshopped Sky, Folks - super cell clouds are a type of extreme weather seen in the US, increasingly likely under continued climate change. You don't want to be under it when it breaks. Welcome to 2017.

Saving BUB, Beautiful Unique Biodiversity, as in this beautiful butterfly in Papua New Guinea, is another reason to preserve carbon storing forests. Source Solkadot at flickr

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Imagine This Polluted and Deforested - and treasure what you see now, a forest in Papua New Guinea. Credit Markus Mauthe at Greenpeace

Showcased the type of future behavior to be seen increasingly under climate change;

Illustrated how the strongest storms are getting stronger, and

Are correlated with the hottest average ocean waters recorded.

"Tropical cyclones are heat engines which extract heat energy from the oceans and convert it to the kinetic energy of the storms' winds." notes one climate scientist.

Thus, it was not surprising that in 2016,

with the hottest ocean temperatures on record globally,

Also had the strongest landfall typhoons ever observed - with winds of 190 mph!

Credit viltsi.deviantart.com, modified

OO Will We Miss Our Last Chance To Save The World From Climate Change?"We have not hit the disastrous level," says leading climate scientist James Hansen.

"But we are close."

Not a Nuclear Detonation, Which Will Be Much Worse - not only for those killed outright, but the hell that survivors will endure. This is a supercell cloud in Lubbock, TX in 2016.Credit tsd7t3 at www.reddit.com

OO A Nuclear Climate Change Threat:
World War Three, By Mistake Harsh political rhetoric, combined with the vulnerability of the nuclear command-and-control system, has made the risk of global catastrophe greater than ever.

OO Trump Team Asks State Dept. What It Spends On International Environmental Efforts as they appear to re-assess the worth of such efforts.

OO The Coming Battle:
Trump Team Vs. Economists - The True Cost Of Climate Change The key difference, as Trump indicates, will be ignoring the facts.

Preparing To Lose Jobs For the US Trump indicates he'll focus on oil and gas instead of clean energy, which is a bigger employer than the fossil fuel industry.

OO Trump's Potentially Toxic Effect On The Solar Industry - The US solar industry is a bigger employer than oil and gas extraction, but it fears disruption under a Trump presidency.

OO The Energy Dept Helped Start A Revolution -
But Doesn't Know Who To Hand It Off To - Costs for wind and solar have plunged 40-60 % since 2008. But the Trump administration wants to pursue fossil fuels.

OO Canada's Trudeau Says Trump Very Supportive Of Keystone XL and all the climate change it will enable. Jump for joy, kids!

Guess who will probably pursue undoing those sanctions
So the deal can go through?
While flooding the world with lots more climate changing fuel?

Guess who will likely get amply rewarded after his presidency
-- if not before then -- by Exxon for doing so?

Trump will keep us guessing... he likes the suspense ...

Source collapseofindustrialcivilization.com

OO Rex Tillerson's Record On Climate Change:
Rhetoric Vs. Reality - He walked a fine line, as Exxon CEO, between Exxon's support of denial and accepting mainstream science.

OO When Tillerson Looked Into Putin's Eyes, He Found Black Gold The lifelong oilman will face intense grilling in Congress: Can he can put the national interest first, especially ahead of Russia?

There, over two decades, he built a relationshipwith a former spy Senator John McCain called "a bully and a murderer."

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FIXING CLIMATE CHANGE

@@ A Simple And Smart Way To Fix Climate Change given by Dan Miller in 2014 at a Ted talk suggests a way to profit as we tackle climate change, by finally charging those who sell and use fossil fuels - and distributing the revenues back to all of us.

The strategy is sure to speed transition to clean renewable energy. What's not to like? Check it out!

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CLIMATE LEADERSHIP

OO Obama's Climate Legacy Checkered By Triumphs And Lost Opportunities - By relying on executive orders and regulations after his legislative majority disappeared, President Obama leaves his climate policies at risk under Donald Trump.

OO Obama Bans New Oil, Gas Drilling Off Alaska, Part Of Atlantic Coast in a push to leave his stamp on the environment before Republican Donald Trump takes office next month.

OO US Interior Dept Finalizes Rule To Protect Waterways From Coal Mining one of Obama's last major environmental regulations that the incoming Trump administration is likely to target.

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MELTDOWN

What Happens In The Arctic Doesn't Stay In the Arctic - where melting ice fuels more warming that, in turn, fuels ever stronger and more damaging hurricanes in the US, and typhoons in Asia.

OO Arctic Ice Melt 'Already Affecting Weather Patterns Where You Live Right Now' The dramatic melting of Arctic ice is already driving extreme weather that affects hundreds of millions of people across North America, Europe and Asia, leading climate scientists say.

OO Spiking Temperatures In The Arctic Startle Scientists and is linked to climate change, may lead to shrinking ice coverage and even more warming in the region, scientists said.

Source www.dialaflight.com

OO North Pole To Warm To Near Melting Point This Week:
50 Degrees Above Normal despite the complete lack of sunshine that far north in December.

OO North Pole Hits Melting Point In Time For Christmas so Santa can just swim to you now.

Under global warming, the Arctic is warming much faster than the temperate zone;

This weakens the jetstream, a polar band of winds, slowing it

and creating a wavy course, sometimes dipping deep into the US.

These winds bring Arctic cold to the US -
AND even more warmth to the Arctic from warmer climes.
Thus, even in winter darkness, the Arctic is hitting warm highs.

If that's so, subpolar land temperatures should be getting colder from this cold Arctic air, even as polar areas get warmer from the warm air coming up from the south. And that's just what scientists are seeing.

Prescient in 2006, and Now Unfolding for both bears and humanity. Credit Jim Morin, Miami Herald

OO November, 2016: The Polar Bear Capital Of The World Is Snowless - and polar bears could be extinct in Canada's Hudson Bay by 2050.

If the bears are in trouble, so are we.

OO The Climate Refugees Of The Arctic - Polar bears have been left stranded on land desperately seeking other things to eat.

OO Leaving The Arctic Alone President Obama's decision to block drilling has been a boon to efforts to protect fragile environments.

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OO Warming Is Sending Mountain Glaciers 'Off A Cliff' Clearer pictures of how glaciers worldwide are changing helps improve predictions of how everything from local water supplies to global sea levels could be affected as glaciers melt.

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GOOD CLEAN NEWS

OO 2016: A Year Of Transition From Talk To Action On Climate Change When it comes to climate change and tackling it, 2016 was a year of extremes.

OO EU Nations Back Stricter Emissions Rules For New Gasoline Engines after flaws were laid bare by the Volkswagen scandal.

OO World's First Solar Panel Road Opens In Normandy Village, France Where 2,000 cars use it daily in a 2 year test, to see if it can power street lighting.

OO Solar Panels Laid Atop Road Surface In Pilot Program At West Point around its visitor center, where the energy generated will help power it.

OO US Businesses Are Buying More Wind And Solar Electricity Than Ever Before to help lower their carbon footprint in offices, stores and factories, but wind has been historically cheaper, so it's attracted far more attention.

Solar is playing catch up, however, as panel prices have plummeted via mass manufacturing, and new finance mechanisms make this honey pot even sweeter.

The Tragic Young Face of Many thousands of children who are starving in Africa now. Source yournewswire.com

OO Hundreds Of Thousands Face Starvation And Death In Africa in the growing crisis no one is talking about. 'As we enter 2017, over 37 million people across Africa are without food,' warns International Development Secretary Priti Patel.

Indigenous forest people are the best preservers of forests, studies find.

OO New EU Wood Energy Rules Threaten Climate, Forests by allowing wood-fired power plants to keep claiming their operations are green for at least 13 more years -- despite releasing more heat-trapping pollution than coal.

A World of Endless GraySource AFP at www.scmp.com

OO Smog Linked To Third Of Deaths In China, Study Finds - (ie, close to a million deaths yearly) putting it on a par with smoking as a threat to health, based on the study of air pollution and mortality data in 74 cities.

OO Smog Returns To Haunt Several Chinese Cities Including Beijing on Christmas after a nearly week-long red alert for the worst smog of the year was lifted.

The solution?

Why Should USA Care? What Happens in China Doesn't Stay in China - their pollution hits the US 5 days later. Source NASA and ORBIMAGE

OO China Passes Laws To Tax Polluters -
But CO2 Doesn't Make The Cut - even though it is one of the major contributors to global warming.

OO India Plans To Generate Nearly 60 % Of Electricity From Renewables By 2027 - Its government forecasts that it will exceed the renewable energy targets set in Paris 2016 by nearly half, and three years ahead of schedule.

OO India Using Less Energy: A Win For The Climate - especially as the country rapidly switches to clean solar energy.

OO Australia: Solar Cooling Systems Take Heat Out Of Summer's Hottest Days

How unusual has the weather been? No one event is "caused" by climate change, but global warming, which is predicted to increase unusual, extreme weather, is having a daily effect on weather, worldwide.

Looking above at recent temperature anomalies, much of the areas surrounding the US are experiencing warmer than normal temperatures: the eastern Pacific warm spot continues and so does the drought in California - despite the river of water expected within days. With warm temperatures, most of that won't translate into snowpack that will store water for 2017 agriculture.

Much of the US is colder than normal, which is also expected under continued climate change, as the polar jetstream, weakened by Arctic warming, starts sending Arctic air down into the US - and warm air into the Artic, warming it even further.

Much of the areas surrounding the North Pole are experiencing much warmer than normal temperatures - not good news for our Arctic thermal shield of ice. Hotter than usual temperatures continue to dominate human habitats.

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There is, of course, much more news on the consequences and solutions to climate change. To get it, check out this annotated resource list I've compiled, "Climate Change News Resources," at Wordpress.com here. For more information on the science of climate change, its consequences and solutions you can view my annotated list of online information resources here.

To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by this wild flower I photographed one spring. Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you'd like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It's our way of letting Congress know there's a strong clean energy voting bloc out there. For more detailed summaries of the above and other climate change items, audio podcasts and texts are freely available.